Former Alex players Billy Waters and Luke Varney were both on the scoresheet for Cheltenham Town in their victory at the Alexandra Stadium against Crewe Alexandra yesterday afternoon, the hosts taking the lead before the break before captain George Ray was sent off for 2 bookable offences in the second half.
Manager David Artell made 3 changes from last Saturday’s 2-1 victory at Mansfield Town with Ray coming back into the team following his 2-game suspension for 10 bookings in place of Nicky Hunt at the back while wide-men Callum Ainley and Charlie Kirk came into the team for James Jones and Ollie Finney. All 3 dropped down to the bench to join Will Jaaskelainen, Shaun Miller, Tom Lowery and Owen Dale. The visitors started with Varney and former Alex youngster Chris Clements with Waters on the bench.
The opening chance of the game came in the second minute with Varney shooting straight at Ben Garratt before former Port Vale striker Tyrone Barnett headed a Chris Hussey free-kick wide on 13 minutes. The first Alex chance (and opening goal of the game) came 11 minutes before the break with Taylor-Sinclair gambling on a bouncing ball and finished underneath goalkeeper Scott Flinders for his first goal for the club.
The hosts almost doubling the lead moments later with Chris Porter almost getting on the end of an Ainley cross. The equaliser came on 45 minutes with a handball shout missed by referee Trevor Kettle with Robins midfielder Kevin Dawson firing across Garratt into the bottom corner.
The second half started with the Alex on the front foot with Jordan Bowery having an effort saved by a defender from Paul Green’s left-wing cross (the penalty wasn’t given) before Ray was sent off 4 minutes after the break for a second yellow card following him mis-controlling the ball then diving into a challenge trying to rectify his original mistake.
The second goal for the visitors came 17 minutes from time with Waters heading home from 6 yards while unmarked before their third came 10 minutes later with Hunt losing the ball to Waters and his pass finding Varney who finished from just outside the area.
We travel to Port Vale next Saturday before we host Notts County the following Saturday.
What have we learnt from this game?
Not a lot to say here that hasn’t already been said on Twitter really – yesterday was an off-day for the team (especially for Ray in particular) but we didn’t look at the races compared to recent weeks. The subs for me made sense with Ainley and Kirk sacrificed for Hunt and Jones to make the midfield more solid rather than the more expansive midfield that we started the game with.
Alexandra Stadium
League 2
30/03/2019 4:00 pm
Attendance: 3495
Referee: Trevor Kettle
| Crewe Alexandra | Cheltenham Town | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taylor-Sinclair | Dawson, Waters, Varney | ||||||
| Garratt | Flinders | ||||||
| Ng | Raglan | ||||||
| Ray | Tozer | ||||||
| Nolan | Boyle | ||||||
| Taylor-Sinclair | Broom | ||||||
| Ainley | 61 | Tillson | |||||
| Green | 79 | Dawson | 81 | ||||
| Wintle | Clements | 65 | |||||
| Kirk | 58 | Hussey | |||||
| Bowery | Varney | ||||||
| Porter | Barnett | 65 | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Jaaskelainen | Lovett | ||||||
| Jones | 61 | Thomas | 65 | ||||
| Miller | 79 | Maddox | 81 | ||||
| Lowery | Waters | 65 | |||||
| Dale | Forster | ||||||
| Finney | Bingham | ||||||
| Hunt | Pring | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 7 | Goal attempts | 6 |
| 1 | On Target | 4 |
| 3 | Corners | 1 |
| 8 | Fouls | 12 |
| 2 | Yellow Cards | 1 |
| 1 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 50 | % | 50 |